from the DRE

October RE Newsletter

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NOTE: The RE Newsletter that appears in the weekly announcements is slightly modified from the version sent directly to RE families. This year, we are making every effort not to share children’s faces on the public web, regardless of photo release status, and we do not publicly post dates and locations for youth events that take place outside of regular Sunday programming.

If you’re a parent or guardian of a child in RE, please check your inbox for the details you’ll need to help your child get where they want to be and to see your children’s adorable faces in action! If you’re a Fellowship member or friend, or a parent wondering whether UUFC might be what your family is looking for in a religious community, read on and enjoy this slightly abbreviated vision of RE.

“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.”
— Marshall McLuhan

    Greetings, Families!

    We have officially launched into a new year of Religious Exploration, and I am so excited about what we are building together!

    This year’s theme is Faith Gamified: Never Quest Alone, and we’ve already been on some epic quests together! Our kids aren’t just dropping into a different lesson each Sunday. They’re building relationships, developing shared language and practices, and in some of our groups, following quests that continue from one week to the next.

    That means there are a few new things to know about how RE works this year, along with plenty of opportunities to eat together, play together, learn together, and generally make the Fellowship feel more like a village.

    So grab your calendar, and read on!

    OCTOBER EVENTS:

    10/11 Family Breakfast is BACK! Register HERE each month, as able.

    10/18 Child Dedications during the service

    DATE UPON REQUEST Cluster-wide Youth Overnight. Registration is required.

    10/25 Fellowship Trick or Treat for All Ages, after the service

    PLAN AHEAD:

    DATE UPON REQUEST OMG! Religious Field Study: Paganism. Registration for travel is required.

    FAMILY BREAKFAST IS BACK!

    Beginning in October, Family Breakfast returns on the second Sunday of each month!

    Come to the social hall before the service for pancakes, bacon, coffee, and a chance to spend some unhurried time with other UUFC families. Bring something to share if that brings you joy and you are able, or simply bring yourselves. There is always enough.

    One of our goals this year is to help children build relationships at the Fellowship that extend beyond their individual classrooms, and Family Breakfast is one of the easiest ways to help that happen. Register HERE, if you can, but show up even if you didn’t get around to registering.

    Second Sundays | 8:50 AM | Social Hall 

    Our next opportunity for Child Dedication will be during worship on October 18.

    Child dedication is our congregation’s ritual of welcoming and blessing children within the Fellowship and affirming the community’s commitment to accompany them as they grow.

    If your family has a child (or three) you would like dedicated to the care of our congregation, or you’d like to learn more about what dedication means at UUFC, reach out to Skyla at dre@uucorvallis.org by October 11th. 

    Please note that this isn’t only for babies! Children of all ages, who wish to be ceremonially dedicated are most welcome to participate. 

    OMG! YOUTH OVERNIGHT, DATE UPON REQUEST

    Our 7th–12th graders are invited to spend the night at the Fellowship with youth from other congregations around the Willamette Valley! This is our longest running post-covid youth gathering, and it happens right here in Corvallis every year.

    We’ll gather in evening for pizza, games, covenant-making, a trip to a fun local haunt, candlelight worship, and probably considerably less sleep than the adults involved would prefer. The next day, we’ll engage in some worship and learning and have some seasonal fun before everyone heads home around noon.

    Dates and useful info have been withheld and are available to any parent whose child would like to attend. REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED, so ask Skyla for more details SOON!

    TEAMS AND COUNCILS TRICK-OR-TREAT AT THE FELLOWSHIP, OCTOBER 25

    Come to church in costume!

    After the service, children and families are invited to trick-or-treat through UUFC’s Teams & Councils, collecting goodies while your whole family gets to know some of the people and groups who make our Fellowship awesome! 

    It’s candy, yes. But it’s also a sneaky little intergenerational relationship-building scheme. And who knows? You might find the group you’ve been dreaming of joining and didn’t even know existed.

    Costumes for children and grown-ups are highly encouraged. This event is for EVERYONE!

    PARENT CONNECTION IS GETTING MORE CASUAL

    Our beloved monthly Parent Connection Dinner is transforming into something considerably easier to fit into actual parent life: a UUFC Parents WhatsApp group.

    Think of it as a low-pressure place to ask a question, share a resource, make plans for a park meetup, say does anyone else’s kid do this?!, offer up outgrown rain boots, or simply stay connected to the other adults raising kids in this community.

    No monthly meeting. No childcare arrangements. No obligation to participate in every conversation. Just another little thread connecting our village.

    Join the UUFC Parent WhatsApp group by using the link in the email sent to parents, or by talking to Skyla on a Sunday if you’re a new parent at UUFC!

    New year, new adventures and a few new logistics!

    Each age group has its own space, rhythm, and way of exploring this year. Here are the big things to know:

    Wayfarer’s Cache:  We know that kids can’t be here every single week of the year. We have a variety of family arrangements, circulating viruses, and fluctuating energy levels on a Sunday morning. BUT we’re dedicated to delivering the depth of Religious Exploration that can only happen when experiences build week to week. 

    Enter, the Wayfarer’s Cache! On the table outside of the RE Office (or somewhere in that vicinity, when the table is needed for other things) you’ll find printed Home Quests for our children and youth who occasionally quest elsewhere. These summarize what happened in each age group and are written to be engaging at the dinner table or while waiting in traffic. Parents who occasionally come without their children can grab home quests while you’re here. If all of you missed, email Skyla for a digital copy. This is not meant to feel like homework! It’s a quick, hopefully fun way to minimize the impact of absences while still taking our explorations on a deep dive, with a side benefit of family spiritual engagement!

    Junior Worship Associates and Chalice Lighting Families:

    Many of you signed up to be a chalice lighting family or for your children to be the Jr. Worship Associate and light the lanterns for us on a Sunday morning. THANK YOU! 

    And if you’re in an overwheming moment (who isn’t right now?), you might suddenly be wondering whether you signed up, and if so, what dates you signed up for. Not to worry! I’ve got you covered! Everyone who signed up during the Great REspawn will receive an automated reminder 3 days before your scheduled service. If the day arrives and you think, “oops! We’re totally out of town on Sunday!” or “There’s no way we’re going to be fever-free by Sunday!” just send me a text and let me know. We’ll get you for a future round. And if you’re a planner who forgot to put it into your calendar, reach out! I’m happy to tell you when you’re scheudled!

    If you could do me a favor and click that blue RSVP button in the reminder text/email, it would be so appreciated! That helps me relax on Sunday morning and know that you know you’re on the schedule. 

    If you haven’t signed up yet, I’ll be reaching out soon. And we only have Jr. Worship Associates scheduled through November, so I’ll be asking for another round of sign ups soon!

    Religious Field Studies for OMG!: This year’s youth programming involves leaving the comfort of our familiar space and learning about other faith traditions on their home turf. To make it less scary, we get to go together! If you’ve ever wondered about another faith, but been intimidated to ask questions or just show up alone, this is a magical opportunity!

    It will, however, require some additional logistics for us at the Fellowship and for you as a family unit. These field studies will take place just about monthly, and I will add a link to the next month’s registration in each RE Newsletter, as well as in a text to parents and guardians. We ask that you register your youth at least a week prior to the field study to help us plan for transportation that complies with our Safe Congregations Policies. Occasionally, travel will take us a good distance because little ole Corvallis doesn’t have formal communities for all the different traditions we will explore.  

    We’re kicking things off with our most approachable field study, a visit to the woods with a familiar face, practicing Pagan Rachel Kohler, who some of you know as your former DRE and others know through theater at the Majestic! Go ahead and register for that first Religious Field Study using the link in the emailed version of this newsletter!

    We’ve added lots more information for families to the website, so go check out the “Learning” tab in the menu and find more information about things like our safety policies, our resources for families, and more!

    AN IMPORTANT NOTE FROM YOUR SEARCH COMMITTEE!

    Hello RE families, the Ministerial Search Committee needs your help. Our Congregational Survey is one of the opportunities members AND friends of the congregation have to weigh in and be heard regarding our search process. Please fill it out here: https://forms.gle/cRfurPUXLKyXq4vE7. It should take about 10-15 minutes and if you have the time, your kids and youth can fill it out too! Also, please keep your eyes peeled for an announcement about a Cottage Meeting focusing on parents and guardians.

    Thank you!

    The MSC

    I promise we had parental approval for this!

    Kylee is always such a joyful helper around the Fellowship! Most recently, she showed up to help set up for the ice cream social, which is an event that called for the temporary return of the social hall disco ball, if you ask me! What’s party music without a disco ball? Could I reach the disco ball hook? Nope. Was there a ladder close by? Also, nope. Thankfully, Kylee was not at all opposed to being hoisted on my shoulders after her mom gave permission, and all was well in Disco Town!

    She did do other, more ordinary helping like hanging signs, holding doors, and being a welcoming presence. She even walked a child back to their parent for care after the fell down. What a fabulous example of our values in action!

    Thank you, Kylee, for always being a ready help to those in need!

    RIDICULOUS FUN HAS ALREADY BEEN HAPPENING!

    We had so much fun with those of you who were able to come to the Great REspawn! 40 gallons of slime were sprayed and dumped on heads and, well, how often do you get the chance to clobber your minister with hot pink slime? I dare say few have had such an opportunity!

    And we enjoyed seeing some of you at the ice cream social for games and a little too much sugar!

    Kids who attended these events have already acucmulated power-up stickers on their avatar sheets to commemorate the fun!

    If you missed the Great REspawn, you might have no idea what I’m talking about when I say power-up stickers or avatar sheets! If you would like a parent orientation packet to help you get the lay of the land in RE this year, let me know!

    A NOTE FROM SKYLA

    We’re doing some exciting curriculum work this year, but the most important thing we’re building is community.

    Children develop a sense of belonging when they know who will be in the room, when someone notices they’ve arrived, when they have inside jokes and shared stories, when adults outside their immediate family know their names, and when Fellowship begins to feel like their place rather than somewhere their parents bring them.

    So when you can, come!

    We know families have sports and illnesses and multihousehold schedules and vacations and exhausting weeks when getting everyone into pants is victory enough. This isn’t a plea for perfect attendance.

    It’s simply an invitation to think of showing up as part of your child’s faith formation. Relationships need repetition.

    And when you can’t come? Grab a home quest and have the fun together, as a family!

    YOU never quest alone. We’ll keep your place by the fire until we see you again in RE!

    Be well, Y’all!

    ~Skyla
    Director of Lifespan Religious Exploration

    RE Newsletter for May

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    “May, queen of blossoms, and fulfilling flowers! What pretty music shall we charm the hours?” – Lord Edward Thurlow

      Greetings, Families!

      Please grab your calendars and read carefully all that is below. This month’s newsletter is ripe with date changes, summer event previews, and more!

      UPCOMING EVENTS:

      5/3 Family Breakfast @ 8:45 (register HERE and bring a dish if you are able)

      5/14 Parent Connection Dinner @ 6:30 (register HERE one time, to get reminders) BRING YOUR OWN DISHES!

      5/17 Annual Meeting (childcare is provided!) @ noon

      5/24 Parent Q&A with Skyla on Playground deck @ 11:45

      PLAN AHEAD

      6/7 River of Life RE Service

      More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop-down menu.

      If you love Family Breakfast — and we know you do — take special note: May’s breakfast is happening one week early so we don’t overlap with Mother’s Day.

      If the mother in your household dreams of nothing more than sleeping in on her special day but simply cannot bear the thought of missing monthly breakfast, please consider this our humble gift to you.

      May Family Breakfast will be Sunday, May 4. We hope to see you there!

      Summer Sundays are made for lingering. A post-service hike, a splash in the river, a snack shared with friends while the kids run ahead.

      While Parent Connection Dinner and Family Breakfast take their annual break from June through September, we’ll be leaning into a few casual, low-prep ways to stay connected this summer:

      June 28 – Fitton Green Hike & Snack
      July 26 – Marys River Natural Area Splash & Chat
      August 29 – Family BBQ & RE Orientation (this one is a Saturday!)

      Each month’s RE newsletter will include registration details and gathering information. If we need to cancel due to extreme heat or low registration, I’ll contact registered families by text.

      I’m especially excited for the August BBQ, because it will serve as our joyful on-ramp into the new church year. We are planning to lean hard into family fun, stronger connections, and fuller attendance in the year ahead, and this gathering will be our first step.

      We’ll eat together, play lawn games, and welcome both new and returning families. Children who register early will receive their RE t-shirts as we unveil this year’s theme. Then, as the kids head off with their guides and advisors to play games and create their group covenants, parents and I will spend some time talking about our shared hopes for Religious Exploration, and about how we can partner with you to make Fellowship Sundays a place your child is genuinely excited to be.

      Please get these dates on your calendar now, and let me know if any of them land squarely on family vacation plans. If a large portion of families are excluded and there’s a better option available, I am more than willing to shuffle things around. The earlier we compare calendars, the easier it is to make summer work for everyone.

      Speaking of communicating your needs with me, I’m delighted to invite you to our annual Parents’ Chat with the DRE.

      This is a casual chance to share your questions, your calendar conflicts, your hopes, your frustrations, and your wildest ideas for how we can get you and your children genuinely engaged in UU faith formation. If there’s something you’ve been wanting me to know, this is a great space for it.

      Join me on May 24 at 11:45 a.m. on the RE deck. I’ll have pitchers of lemonade, the kids can play on the playground, and we can chat in the sunshine.

      What you share in this conversation really does shape the plans we make over the summer as we prepare for fall, so I hope you’ll come help me dream a little.

      Thank you to everyone who came out for the JETPIG Easter Egg Hunt last month! The feedback was fabulous. Our big kids were wonderfully caring with the littles, and our volunteers kept their cool under some very real crowd pressure at the slime and candy tables.

      I especially want to share one story that came out of our volunteer debrief.

      When I asked one volunteer how the event had gone, they told me they had spent part of the night before studying the value assigned to their station so they would be ready to talk about it from every angle and ready to help children think a little more deeply instead of simply grabbing the prize and sprinting off to the next table.

      They were positively beaming as they said, “I learned so much just preparing for this, and then it really paid off. I had the best conversations with some of the kids.”

      As they shared a few of those exchanges with me, I realized I could hardly track the details because I was too busy feeling so stinking proud to serve alongside adults who take the faith formation of our children this seriously.

      Y’all, we are beyond lucky to have the volunteer team we do. Your children are in excellent hands with these remarkable leaders who prepare on their own time so they can engage more meaningfully, and who genuinely delight in watching children light up with excitement about what they are learning. Gah! What could be better than that?

      Thank you, as always, for entrusting your children to the care of the Religious Exploration team. It is such a joy and an honor to watch them grow, to see their personalities branch out in all directions, becoming more fully themselves year by year. What a gift it is to be humans in community together.

      I’m wishing you blossoming love, deeper connection, and a few good pockets of springtime ease this month. And as always, if you need to chat, I am only an email or phone call away.

      RE Newsletter for February

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      “Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.” ― Henry David

      Thoreau Greetings, Families! The shortest month with the longest shadows has arrived, and our hearts are tender from all we’ve been holding. Let us re-center love this month, not in the glittery, greeting-card way, but in the steady, courageous way that shows up when the world needs us most. And because everything is easier as a village, I invite you to pull out your calendars and make note of these opportunities to gather in love and learning!

      UPCOMING EVENTS:
      2/8 Family Breakfast @ 8:45 (register HERE and bring a dish if you are able)
      2/8 Eliot Family Camp Q&A session after RE pickup in the sanctuary
      2/12 Parent Connection Dinner @ 6:30 (register HERE, one time only, to get reminders) 

      PLAN AHEAD4/17-19 Youth Coast Retreat (register HERE!) 

      More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop-down menu.  

      Big news! Our Endowment team has money to give as scholarships to get families to Eliot Institute’s Family Camp! We’re excited to use these funds in service of getting more families to this formative and inspiring gathering, so please don’t hesitate to apply! To help you decide if Eliot would be right for you (spoiler, it would be!), Linda Hardison will be showing an informational video and answering all your burning Eliot questions after you pickup your children from RE on February 8th. Please consider attending if you’re at all curious about family camping opportunities in a UUI context!

      The annual Youth Coast Retreat is around the corner, and you don’t want to miss the fun! Your early registration will give us time get a rental van reservation if we need one again this year, so please check your calendars and register promptly if you are able. Youth will be staying at our usual place in Waldport, with a back door that opens right onto the beach. This is a relaxed, 2-night bonding weekend, where the youth will play collaborative games, cook together, spend time in nature, and co-create their own worship experience before coming home. I have it on Edna’s good authority that it’s the best thing they do all year. More details are in the registration link!

      These are tricky times for everyone, but perhaps especially for parents who are navigating how much to shield and/or engage with our children about the things that are going on in the world. For that reason, I’ve added a page to our Family Faith Formation Toolkit with resources for parents during these challenging times. I hope you find some useful ideas there. If you have found resources useful that you’d like me to add to the list, please let me know! We’re all in this together!

      In January, we spent time exploring ways we feel safe and loved, and ways to help others feel cared for. Our Spirit Play kiddos each got their own box to sit inside of, with a light and a welcome mat, and they decorated the insides with things that make them feel safe and loved, and were invited to take them home as a place to hang out whenever they want to be surrounded by things that give them the warm-fuzzies. Both our Spirit Play and Seeker Space groups built a “community of care” using our giant tinker toys. They had to come up with things that help people feel seen and cared for, and label each of the supports with one of those attributes to build a home for their community of care. If they needed more support, they had to come up with more attributes of a caring community. I read things like love, time, money, and family, among many other things that go into creating a community of care. The Seeker Space structure is still intact on the mezzanine, so pop upstairs, climb inside, and see what kind of things our kids decided are necessary for a welcoming community. It’s sure to give you a case of the heart-swells!

      Occasionally, I become aware that there is a young person who really wants to attend a thing and it got scheduled for a date that they already have an obligation, or a weekend that they’re at their other parent’s house, and it really stinks! Some parents have offered me copies of their kids’ sports schedules, performance dates, and custody rhythms, and I refer to them every single time I plan an event like a service project or a retreat. It’s also great to have because we want to show up for our kids and cheer them on when they have a special event! So consider this an invitation to share, only to the extent that feels right for your family, any blackout dates on your child’s calendar (We’ve already paid for camp that week!) or events that they’d enjoy some extra support for (They would love some more fans at the basketball tournament!) and I’ll share them with the adults who directly support them in their RE spaces and refer to them before selecting dates for major events. I can’t always accommodate everyone’s schedule, but I use what I’m given to choose dates that work for as many kids as possible. 

      The family that serves together… builds beloved community! The Curry-Grant household is loaded with cheerful volunteers! Both Kevin and Molly serve on separate weeks in our Seeker Space. They bring calm, kind, and steadying energy to a group that can be more than a little boisterous! And Edna? She’s quick to volunteer in formal roles, when asked, but what stands out to me is the way I can always count on her to make new kids feel like they really belong. On more than one occasion, I’ve said, “Hey, Edna! We’re going to have a new kid today,” and she’s on it! I’ll see her giving a building tour, showing new kids where the snacks are, and introducing them to the other youth. Edna has the spiritual gift of hospitality! Big thanks to this family that oozes with volunteerism! We are so grateful for all you bring to our community!

      There’s been so much goodness in RE in the last month, it’s hard to capture it all in pictures! One thing I want to make sure you notice, though, is that second picture. This is Pheobe, and she’s our newest childcare staff member, filling in primarily in Spirit Play when Niana is away at volleyball tournaments, but she’ll also be in the Rainbow Room from time to time when we need a sub. Phoebe has completed the child development class at the high school and is first aid and CPR certified. Most importantly, she’s got a heart for working with children!  We’re lucky to have her on the team! While we’re talking about our amazing childcare providers, I want to remind all parents that we can often provide free childcare for UUFC events, given enough notice. Parents can fill out THIS FORM any time you need to request childcare for a Fellowship gathering, and I’ll do my best to assemble a care team from our fabulous pool of background-checked volunteers and youth childcare staff! I’m wishing you hope and love this month! And as always, if you need to chat, I’m just an email or a phone call away.

      Parenting Resources for Challenging Times

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      With all that is escalating in the world around us, I want to provide a few resources that families have found helpful as they navigate the highly personal decisions about how to talk to their children and youth about the terrible things happening in the world. If you have others to add that you feel would be useful to our Fellowship families, please send them to dre@uucorvallis.org

      A primary skill we can all develop and use as our children’s first and primary spiritual leaders is developing our capacity for self-regulation. Whatever it is we need to talk to our children about, whether it’s the news or their chores, the potential for positive outcomes is higher when we enter into it with awareness of our own emotions and how they’re participating in the way we are showing up with our children. Without realizing it, the stress we carry in our own bodies can easily spill into our interactions, word choices, patience levels, and more. Dr. Amber Thornton has loads of resources on self-regulation for parents. Below is just one of her many offerings on the topic.

      The Fred Rogers Institute has offered a great PDF about talking with children about difficult things in the news. You can access the full 2-page guide by clicking HERE.

      “When children bring up
      something frightening, it’s
      helpful right away to ask them
      what they know about it. We
      often find that their fantasies
      are very different from the
      actual truth. What children
      probably need to hear most
      from us adults, is that they can
      talk with us about anything
      and that we will do all we
      can to keep them safe
      in any scary time.

      For an at-a-glance list of things to keep in mind for developmentally appropriate conversations at every age and stage, check out this one-sheet from the Children’s Network and Early Risers.

      And finally, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network has offered a guide to Talking to Children About the Shooting, which can be accessed HERE.

      My door is always open if you find yourself in need of additional resources or thought partnership through this moment in history. I also encourage all of our parents to take advantage of the Parent Connection Dinner on the second Thursday of each month. Strengthening your connections to the village and having a designated place to talk about what’s hard with people who are fielding similar questions and facing similar challenges can make a world of difference!

      RE Newsletter for January

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      “Dear world, I am excited to be alive in you, and I am thankful for another year.”  ~Charlotte Eriksson

      Greetings, Families!

      I hope your winter holidays were warm and cozy! A new year is unfolding before us, and we’re starting off with a little ease after the holiday hustle. Don’t miss these sweet opportunities for connection and reflection in January!

      UPCOMING EVENTS:

      1/8 Parent Connection Dinner @ 6:30 (register HERE one time, to get reminders)

      1/11 Family Breakfast @ 8:45 (register HERE and bring a dish if you are able)

      1/25 Heartland Humane service project for OMG!

      More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop-down menu.

      The OMG! youth group will serve at the Heartland Humane Society on January 25th. Specific times and registration details have been emailed directly to parents. This is always a favorite activity each year, so be sure to register by 1/18! Youth without a permission slip will not be permitted to serve.

      While there, the youth will assist with routine care of the animals and facility, and wrap up with some animal socialization time. Please make sure your child wears work clothes that can get dirty. The attending youth advisors will be Steve Ferrell and Mark Aron. Please send questions to Skyla.

      Thanks to a dedicated group of moms, the Parent Connection Dinner, formerly known as the Parent Peer Support Group, is no longer a potluck! We have enough soups prepped to get us through the end of the year! Parents are invited to show up with their dishes and enjoy soup, bread, and desserts along with meaningful facilitated discussion on topics relevant to parenting and mutual support. You are invited to register one time, and then you’ll receive the automated reminder texts and emails each month. You can help us decide how much to prepare by clicking RSVP button on the reminder to let us know you’re coming. As always, free childcare will be provided in a nearby room.

      Thank you for showing up and supporting our 4th-6th graders at the Holiday Fair! They successfully sold out of magnets, post cards, and paintings and raised a nice chunk of money to spend toward the many projects they’re hoping to do together this year.

      It was amazing to have eight of our bold and creative young people perform in a Sunday service this year! The gratitude and awe keeps rolling in from all corners of Fellowship life, as so many were moved by the story and song that was shared.

      Your offering of time and courage meant more than you might imagine to those in our community who were feeling alone during the winter holidays, or who have limited interactions with younger people. I can’t tell you how many people have said something along the lines of, “Their singing! It was so beautiful and so moving! Exactly what my soul needed!”

      So thank you, parents and kids, for giving of yourselves and your time so generously. It was such a gift to share worship with you in that way!

      Our amazing OMG! member, Elizabeth, reached out and asked if she could offer her talent for face painting at our annual Holiday Fair. She spent five hours sitting at the kids’ table painting faces for free, and connecting with people of all ages. I love that she knows her gifts, identified a place where she could share them, and reached out to make it happen!

      Several times, I watched children who were bored from shopping with their parents light up when they saw that there was something for them, and then their parents light up when they saw that it was free!

      Thank you, Elizabeth, for being exactly who you are and for sharing that with us!

      If you or your child has a gift just waiting to be shared, let me know how we can support you in sharing it! 

      Y’all, 2025 was a wild ride in RE!

      We spent the first half of the year without any classrooms to meet in, and still managed to pull off a one-room school house style Sunday morning offering for children in the social hall, a youth group in the library, and the first round of OWL (Our Whole Lives, comprehensive sex and sexuality class) since the pandemic. This would not have been possible without the tireless work of a dozen dedicated RE leaders who were willing to keep showing up in the most challenging of circumstances. And they were so, so challenging!

      In the back half of the year we hosted a children’s summer camp, hired two more youth staff, moved back into the classroom wing, said goodbye to Rev. McAllister and welcomed Rev. McGee, added a 4th classroom and lots of new RE leaders to keep our classrooms thriving, and closed out the year with our Winter Solstice pageant!

      I can’t think of a better way to have spent a year in community! I am so grateful to get to spend my time working with you and your children, and I’m excited for us to make 2026 a joyful and hope-filled time to be at the Fellowship together! 

      Happy New Year, Beloveds!

      RE Newsletter for December

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      “How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!” – Thomas Wentworth Higginson

        Greetings, Families!

        I hope your Thanksgiving weekend was full of all the things you love most! It’s time to turn our hearts toward all the good things that December has to offer. Grab your calendar and let’s have a little look ahead!

        UPCOMING EVENTS:

        12/6 Seeker Space Kids & kids table at the Holiday Fair! 9-3 @ UUFC!

        12/14 NO Family Breakfast this month!

        12/11 Parent Peer Support Group meal prep night. Register ONCE Here!

        12/21 Solstice Pageant during the service NO RE! 

        12/28 All ages Poetry service with activity kit available for kids NO RE!

        Post Holiday Break for Parents: date, time, and registration information were emailed directly to parents. Check your inboxes!

        ***Childcare is still available in the Rainbow Room on no RE Sundays!

        More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop-down menu. 

        Our 4th-6th graders in the Seeker Space have been making crafts and art for their booth at the Holiday Fair on December 6th! They learned about Entrepreneurship from our very own Rachel McGrath and have role-played sales etiquette with their advisors. They are ready to see you at the Holiday fair with their selection of magnets, Perler bead ornaments, and one-of-a-kind paintings! Come say hi and support their efforts!

        If your Seeker Space kiddo isn’t signed up for a time slot yet, please pop over to register them HERE ASAP!

        For the protection of our children, we will not post the date and time of children’s events where their parents and guardians are not remaining on the property. Full information regarding the Post-Holiday Break was sent directly to parents’ inboxes. Please check your email for the December newsletter for the date, time, and registration information. OR, if you are a parent or guardian of a school aged child, you can email me (Skyla) directly at dre@uucorvallis.org for more information.

        In an effort to honor feedback from our families, we decided to do something a little different for the winter holidays this year. We will be hosting a Solstice Pageant featuring our children and youth at the center during an intergenerational Sunday morning service instead of holding a separate Christmas Eve service for families with children. This all-ages service will be on December 21st, and while our speaking roles are all spoken for, we do have room for a couple more woodland creatures if any of you missed the news in last month’s newsletter and have children who have an inner squirrel or raccoon just waiting to shine.

        The Christmas Eve service is open to all, and we will have electric candles available for children and those who wish to participate but prefer not to handle fire. We will also have some soft toys in the social hall in case your littles need a little more room to burn off some steam while you listen to the service. 

        The following Sunday, December 28th, will be a second all-ages service, with a poetry theme. Children are invited to participate in all the ways the adults do, and I will have a poetry-themed collaborative art project for the kids to quietly work on together, in case the poetry isn’t quite their thing. 

        During both the solstice and poetry services, there will still be childcare available in the Rainbow Room for registered children. 

        Thank you to all who responded to my Coming-of-Age feeler email! Unfortunately, we did not get enough of a response to confidently plan a CoA program for this year. If you let that email slip through the cracks and want to immediately contact me, there’s a chance we hit our minimum needed youth to make a go of it, but…

        On my recent trip to the Liberal Religious Educators Association Fall Conference, I connected with many DREs from across the continent and learned that the trend in Coming of Age spaces, since returning to full operations post-pandemic, is increasingly to hold a larger CoA experience once every four years during high school rather than every other year for middle school. The reasons for this shift include the smaller group sizes that are still being experienced nationwide, as well as a shift in developmental readiness for the spiritual content of the program after our kids spent well over a year out of community, both socially and religiously.

        I share this to say, do not worry that your child will miss their Coming of Age experience. I will not let that happen! This program is central to what it means to grow up UU! We will be thoughtful about how we evaluate and implement this shift, if that turns out to be the direction we need to move. And I invite you to be in conversation with me about your child’s spiritual and developmental needs as we evaluate this potential shift in programmatic rhythms. 

        Those of you I’ve discussed this possible shift with have all said, “But what about OWL?” I know we have alternated these two programs annually as far back as anyone can remember. OWL has a wider reach and a waitlist of nonUUs hoping to get in, so as long as we can maintain an adequate number of trained OWL facilitators, there is no reason to shift away from our regular OWL schedule. If you are interested in becoming an OWL facilitator and helping to keep this vital program available to our community, come talk to me!

        This past Sunday, we had our very first Children’s Chapel since the pandemic! Those of you who are newer UUs might be wondering what the heck a Children’s Chapel even is.

        Whenever there’s a 5th Sunday of the month (about 4 times per year), instead of having our regular age-segregated RE groups, we have one larger group with all of the children and youth except those in the Rainbow Room. They’re a bit wiggly and disinterested in what we’ve got going on in chapel. 

        As I explained to the kids, each time we gather for a children’s chapel, we will have three primary elements: shared singing, some kind of seasonal ritual, and some form of service. These are three practices that are vital to our community life. Shared singing lifts our spirits, rituals allow us to honor and witness one another and the earth in all our seasons, and service reinforces our interconnectedness with one another and our wider community. 

        In November, our children’s chapel included learning and analyzing the song What We Need is Here, inspired by the Wendell Berry poem, Wild Geese, which was read for us by Michi Araki. Then we silently processed through electric candlelight to each gather a piece of bread and a cup of apple cider. In our quiet circle, we engaged in a mindfulness practice of thinking of the wide range of people and resources that went into us holding the food that we were about to share. From soil to farmers, millers to road construction crews, power grids and bank software, these kids thought of so many people and skills that made it possible for us to have bread and cider, including all in our Fellowship who give generously so that we can have a comfortable RE budget. 

        When we had gobbled up all of the bread and had our fill of cider, we assembled winter care kits for each child to have in their car for when they cross paths with someone living outdoors. We talked about safety, and not approaching unknown adults without a trusted adult with them. We talked about what it would be like to have wet feet and have no way of getting dry in the bitter cold of winter. And we learned about the cool ways that family members of some of our kids already keep resources in their cars and bikes for those in need who cross their paths. 

        It was a lovely return to our regular practice of Children’s Chapel, and I’m already looking forward to next time!

        If you have any unmet needs for support, unanswered questions about how or why we do what we do in RE, please reach out any time! Our offerings exist because families share their dreams and needs, and we rely on your partnership! And if you ever want to be removed from our email list, just shoot me a note and I’ll make it so.  May we hold Love at the center of all we do together!

        Invitation to Visit the Ancestor Tree through October

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        In this tender season of remembrance, we are approaching our traditional Ancestor Tree with gentle intention and a small change. In an effort to care well for our grounds and to make this ritual more accessible to all, we’ve reimagined where and how we gather the names of those we carry in our hearts.

        You are invited to visit the table in the classroom wing, just outside the RE office, where you will find an altar box, paper leaves, and pencils. On a leaf, write the name of someone or something that has meant something and has died. A mentor, a teacher, a beloved pet, a family member, a forest, a river, a place that held you. Let this be a moment to name what matters. Add your leaf to the trees placed on either side of the altar box—our new Ancestor Trees.

        There, you will also find a basket of blessings for what was real and lost. You are welcome to take one. Read it there in a quiet moment, or tuck it into your pocket for a day when you need to remember that you are not alone. That love persists. That absence, though real, is never the full story.

        Please linger to read the names others have offered. Let yourself be moved by the web of connections among us—the invisible threads of people and places that have shaped the ones we now hold in Beloved Community. These names are echoes of resilience, tenderness, and transformation. They remind us that we are always standing on sacred ground.

        And as you reflect, consider this: What does it mean to become an ancestor? To live in such a way that one day, someone might speak your name with love and longing?

        This is not just a ritual of memory. It’s a quiet invitation to live with greater intention, greater courage, and greater tenderness, for those who came before, those who walk beside us now, and those who will follow.

        With you in the mystery,

        Skyla

        RE Newsletter for October

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        “October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!” ― Rainbow Rowell , Attachments

        Greetings, Families!

        The soggy, foggy season of all things cozy is finally upon us! Between sipping soup and reading Pumpkinheads to the kids, please take a moment to catch up on your Religious Exploration news and add some events to your calendar.

        Please note that this is the last month that this newsletter will be sent to last year’s registered families. If you are not sure whether you have registered your child for this new year in RE, please reach out to me, and I’ll help get you all squared away so that you don’t miss any of the fun!

        UPCOMING EVENTS:

        10/12 Monthly Family Breakfast is Back! register HERE

        10/16 Parent Peer Support Group is Back! Register HERE

        10/25 Youth Overnight: registration information was sent home and to parents’ inboxes.

        10/26 Teams and Councils Trick or Treat (wear your costumes to service!)

        More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop-down menu.

        You want to know what’s going on at the Fellowship and what different groups there are to be a part of. Your kids want to have some fun and wear their costumes. Okay, let’s face it. You want to have fun too! That’s why we’re hosting the annual Teams and Councils Trick-or-Treat event after the service on October 26th.

        Wear your costumes to the service and plan to hang out after to wander around and check out the information, goodies, and games presented by many of the wonderful groups, teams, and councils that keep us up to good trouble at the Fellowship and beyond!

        Registered OMG! youth and their friends are invited to this year’s Fall Overnight at UUFC! As always, we’ve invited youth from Eugene, Salem, and Willamette Falls congregations to join us, but it’s still unknown as to whether they have enough volunteer support to get their youth here this year.

        Please ASAP, but no later than October 8th. Registration information went home with youth and was included in the email version of this newsletter. If you have not received it and are interested in registering yout youth please reach out to Skyla at dre@uucorvallis.org.

        We will have a pizza dinner, and social hour, followed by a trip to the Melon Patch corn maze, and then come warm up with a candelight worship before bed. More details can be found in the Registration link!

        By request, we took September off of our regular family gatherings, but it’s time to get back into the swing of things with the return of the Family Breakfast and the Parent Peer Support Group.

        The Breakfast will be sticking with its 2nd Sunday Schedule this year, so please come join us on the 12th at 8:45. Registering each month helps us plan, but please come even if you forget to register.

        The Parent Peer Support Group (with free childcare!) will start on the 3rd Thursday in October, and will be on 2nd Thursdays beginning in November. You don’t want to miss this first session back on October 16th! Register anew with this link to be kept up to date on changes regarding this group.

        All of our Sunday morning groups for school-aged children are using the Mosaic antiracism curriculum this year. One of the upcoming lessons involves the use of candy. Because we don’t generally hand out candy in RE, I want to give our parents a heads up and a chance to share their family norms and concerns around sweets so that we can make sure all children are included and their dietary preferences are honored. These lessons will be taking place in Spirit Play on October 19th and in the Seeker Space on November 9th.

        Kids will sanitize their hands and then sort and handle various candies throughout the lesson.  Each child will be invited to taste 2 pieces of candy during class time, and the rest will be divvied up and sent home with consenting parents at pickup. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to me!

        I’m so pleased to share that a new RE team has formed with the focus on safety! Below is a copy of what they shared in the monthly journal. Because there is information specifically for parents, I want to make sure you have a chance to encounter it, even if you aren’t in the habit of reading the journal.

        We are fortunate to have a growing Religious Exploration program here at UUFC! To support this program, we have formed a Safe Congregations Support Team made up of parents and other members of our fellowship. Its purpose is to bolster the safety of all who engage with Religious Exploration programs by partnering with the Director of Religious Exploration to support uniform policy and procedure implementation and execution, consult on ambiguous background check results or interpersonal conflicts that have the potential to disrupt RE community-building efforts, and lovingly invite RE volunteers and participants back into covenant when our safety policies and procedures have been violated.

        As part of our role of fostering the safest environment possible for our UUFC families, we would like to remind parents and guardians that RE staff and volunteers do not supervise children during the coffee hour after the service or at any time they are not engaged directly in RE programs. Please stay mindful of your children’s whereabouts and safety during social gatherings and bear in mind that, as an inclusive community that values transformation, we welcome strangers and individuals with diverse histories into our midst.

        If you have a concern that needs to be addressed by our team, please contact Kyle Cupp, chairperson of the RE Safe Congregations Support team. Additionally, if you are passionate about safety and have skills and time to share, we’d love to hear from you!

        If you have any unmet needs for support, unanswered questions about how or why we do what we do in RE, please reach out any time! Our offerings exist because families share their dreams and needs, and we rely on your partnership!

        May we hold Love at the center of all we do together in this new RE and beyond!

        RE Summer Newsletter

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        Greetings, Families!

        We made it through another fabulous Fellowship year! 🙌 With some of your favorite RE activities on summer hiatus, you might be wondering what other opportunities are coming for children, youth, and families. Well, wonder no more!

        Grab your calendars and get ready for summer goodness you won’t want to miss!

        SUMMER EVENTS for FAMILIES

        6/8 Family Hike at Lewisburg Saddle, 1-2PM, register here

        6/23-27 Play to Your Values summer camp, 8:30 to 11:30 on the Fellowship Lawn

        6/29 Corvallis Knights Game, 5-8ish at Goss Stadium, register here

        7/6 Sunday Morning Kids’ Lemonade Stand, during and after the service

        7/13 Family Hike at Fitton Green, 1-2PM, register here

        8/3 Sunday Morning Sidewalk Chalk Values, during the service for kids Canceled

        8/10 Family Hike and Splash at Mary’s River Natural Area, 1-3PM register here

        8/16 Outdoor movie night and camping on the lawn, 9PM register here

        8/24 Ice Cream Social, 7PM on Fellowship Lawn, register here

        SUMMER EVENT for YOUTH

        8/24 Youth kickoff river float, noon to whenever, register here

        More information about our events can be found below, and info for all events  can be found at uucorvallis.org by clicking “News” in the menu bar and then selecting “RE Council” from the drop down menu.

        The second Sunday of each month, June through August, we’ll be hosting a family hike. We ask that families preregister so that we know who to wait for at the trailhead, and hikes with fewer than 2 registered families will be canceled via text.

        We’ll be starting with Lewisburg Saddle and a little visit to the spot my family calls Salamander Heaven because there are tons of salamanders to see. Then we’ll hit Fitton Green in July. We’ll wrap up the summer with a short walk followed by a splash in a bend in the river that has shallows for little humans and a deeper pool for our confident swimmers on the back side of Mary’s River Natural Area. 

        Exciting news! The youth will have a dedicated youth room in September and they’ve chosen a wild accent wall to paint themselves. We will begin painting this Sunday and continue on Sundays until the job is done. Please have youth arrive in clothes that can get paint on them.

        On the first Sunday of each month, we will have a multiage activity for the kids. In July, we’ll prepare a lemonade stand again to raise money for the charitable organization that the children vote to give to. In August, we’ll spend some time on the playground talking about our shared values and what they mean to us, and then sidewalk chalk the heck out of firwood entrance with 6 word statements about our values.

        If you’re nervous about having the kids in the sanctuary again, know that you’ll have relief on the first Sunday of each month!

        In addition to hikes and during-service activities, we have a couple of night time activities that are open to the entire congregation, and geared specifically toward families.

        On June 29th, we’ll have a ballpark night with the Knights. Buy a ticket and join us in section 2 so we can sing and cheer and eat junk together. Register for that event HERE.

        And on August 16th, we’re going to show the classic My Girl on an outdoor movie screen and you’re invited to camp on the lawn and show up to the service in your jammies the next day. Registration for the movie night with camping is HERE. You do not have to camp to come enjoy the movie!

        It’s been so much fun getting to know your children over the course of this last year. They are delightful in all the ways and it’s the biggest honor to get to spend time with them week after week and get to know their quirks and gifts. 

        Thank you for raising such amazing humans and for being committed to doing it in community!


        Before you go, some parents have requested to be contacted about RE happenings via text. Our church management software allows for that, but only once you’ve opted in. If you are interested in receiving things like this newsletter via text, please use this form to opt into that service. And please communicate with me about how it’s going if you opt in. Breeze can be a bit fussy, so this will be a new experiment. I’ll be counting on your feedback!
         
        And as always, if you’d like to stop receiving updates about Fellowship RE activities, email me and let me know.
         
        Happy June, Y’all! 

        UU Elevator Speeches

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        Recently, a small group of Fellowship members spent several weeks crafting their elevator speeches about Unitarian Universalism. That is, they worked on how they might best describe UUism to someone in the time it takes to move between floors on an elevator. UUs often find it easier to describe what we aren’t rather than what we are, and many of us are inclined to be rather wordy, so it was no small task. And the task is never done.

        The point of the elevator speech is to know what to say on the fly, so it takes practice! If you see any of these brave souls at coffee hour, help them keep their skills sharp by asking to hear their elevator speech.

        A few of them will be sharing their speech in an upcoming Sunday service to hopefully inspire you to consider what you might say, if asked, “What the heck is Unitarian Universalism, anyway?” Do you have a go-to answer? If so, Skyla wants to hear it!